ST JOHN’S, Antigua (CMC) — West Indies will seek a drastic turnaround of fortunes when they face South Africa

in the opening One-Day International of the five-match series here today.

The hosts head into the series on the backs of several pathetic outings which saw them lose two of three second round matches in the World Twenty20 Championship and back-to-back Twenty20 Internationals to the Proteas on Wednesday and Thursday.

With their performances becoming increasingly worse, West Indies will be anxious to halt the slide which has taken them to the brink of embarrassment.

Captain Chris Gayle said yesterday he remained optimistic that West Indies would give an improved performance in the upcoming series.

“We did not play as well as we know we can in the two T20 matches, so we know we have to do much better in the ODIs,” Gayle said.

“We know where we went wrong and we know we have to correct our mistakes. We have a number of players who have performed under pressure at

the highest level so they know exactly what is required,” added the Jamaican.

West Indies’ batting struggled badly in the two T20s, failing to chase down ordinary scores of 137 and 120.

While he credited his bowlers for their work, he said the batsmen needed to adjust to the longer version of the shorter format.

“The bowlers have been doing very well to restrict the South African batsmen, now we as batsmen need to play our part,” Gayle said.

“The ODIs will be a different kind of cricket. We will be looking to make a fresh start. In 50-over cricket you can be a bit more patient as you have more time to build an innings; so that will be an opportunity to get in, see what is happening with the pitch, and build from there. We believe we can do well in the upcoming series,” he noted.

South Africa, meanwhile, will be looking to extend their dominance in the series, and in the recent past, against the hosts. They have beaten the Windies in their last 10 ODIs and will fancy their chances of continuing the winning trend.

Captain Graeme Smith said following on from their clean sweep of the T20 series, they would be looking to maintain their intensity.

“This ODI series is very important for us, and as we showed during the two T20s, we wanted to win, and play with our usual intensity,” said Smith.

“We want to get back on the road to success again, and we have a lot of work to do, following a poor campaign in the T20 World Cup, so this is an important tour for us.”

“We have a long break following this tour, and so we want to leave everything out on the field here in the Caribbean.”

Squads:

WEST INDIES (from) — Chris Gayle (captain), Dwayne Bravo, Sulieman Benn, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Narsingh Deonarine, André Fletcher, Nikita Miller, Kieron Pollard, Denesh Ramdin, Ravi Rampaul, Kemar Roach, Darren Sammy, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Jerome Taylor.

SOUTH AFRICA (from) — Graeme Smith (captain), Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, Mark Boucher, Loots Bosman, Roelof van der Merwe, Morne Morkel, Dale Steyn, Charl Langeveldt, Johan Botha, Hashim Amla, Alviro Petersen, Ryan McLaren, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, David Miller.